


but hunter (you were human)

by flo_4tesq



Category: Three Dark Crowns Series - Kendare Blake
Genre: F/F, Pining, Unhappiness, this isnt like serious angst but its certainly also not fluffy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-24
Updated: 2019-01-24
Packaged: 2019-10-15 16:28:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17532200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flo_4tesq/pseuds/flo_4tesq
Summary: “Katharine,” Bree is so close to her now, close enough to see the flecks of green in her eyes. So close she can smell the wind on her hair, and she always smells faintly like burning. Kat's heart rattles in her chest. “what do you wish of me?”





	but hunter (you were human)

Genevieve and Pietyr are arguing. It seems they do nothing else than argue, and kiss up to her, and tell her nothing of importance. It's like the entire island is against her and the only one who seems to care about her (not her crown, not her obedience, not what she hopes is love for pietyr) are the dead queens under her skin. She can feel them reacting to Genevieve and Pietyr now, the naturalists calling her outside. Greavesdrake manor had a garden to envy, a hothouse Natalia used to let her tend to the plants in when she had been good. She craves it now, yearns to be back there. Or maybe she just yearns for her mother.  
Of course indrid down has gardens, but they've gone untended with the poisoner reign. Not to a point of disrepair—the black council would never be so undignified—but there is no love in it. No gentle touch. Perhaps when jules milone is captured and the mist calms she can devote time and attention to that. A sigh escapes her lips, and she feels her eyes stinging. Only 16 and already so much responsibility. So much dislike for something she never chose to do. She clears her throat.  
“Pietyr, Genevieve. Whatever it is you disagree upon, i do not care. I am going to the gardens, and when i am back you will have decided on something.” she sees Pietyr move to join her, and holds her hand up, gracefully storming out of the room. 

When she dismounts half moon she already feels better. The wind in her hair, the rush of people jumping out of her way. She is a vision in black, the rightful queen. The gardens look empty apart from a few servants and gardeners milling around, and her shoulders relax even more. There's a particular spot she's headed to, where imported roses grow so high she can't see over them. They're imported from the mainland, though she doubts they are as beautiful there as they are here, with elementals to give them water and sunlight and naturalists to bloom their colour even brighter. The black roses grow intermingled with the red and other colours, a display she secretly thinks of as depicting her and her sisters and their people.  
When she turns the corner however, she sees there is already someone sitting on the ornately decorated stone bench. Bree westwood is sitting with her face turned up the the sun, smiling at something Katharine can't imagine. She hesitates, but figures if Bree doesn't want to share the bench with the queen then she can leave.  
Bree cracks open one of her eyes at the rustling of Katharine's skirts, and her face falls for a moment, then regains its composure.  
“Queen Katharine,” she says, and shuffles more towards the edge of the bench, making it clear that if Katharine doesn't want to share her company she can leave herself. Kat likes her boldness, her bite. Fleetingly, she wonders what it is her sister liked so much about her, if it was the same thing or something else entirely. Then she quashes that thought with the heel of her boot.  
“Hello Bree. Enjoying the weather?”  
Bree smirks and a dark cloud drifts in front of the sun a little faster than usual. Katharine smiles.  
“Make it rain if you must, i'll drench if it means being away from Pietyr and Genevieve.”  
Bree lifts an eyebrow, as if she didn't expect such talk from her queen.  
“I shall do no such thing. If i made it rain these flowers would be overwatered, and that would be a real pity.”  
Katharine snorts, unqueenly. She loves these roses. There was a black rosebush by the black cottage, where she and Mirabella would turn them into crowns while Arsinoe lay in the sun, her hair unruly and tangled. Perhaps this memory is only a dream, but Katharine hopes it's not.  
She turns away from Bree and turns her face to the sky, mirroring how Bree was sitting earlier. She feels the sun warm on her skin and smiles, lost in thought.

Meeting at the roses becomes a habit, a tentative friendship shared over inane small talk and a mutual dislike of being cooped up too much. Katharine's just finishing a story about something or other, and Bree laughs.  
She knocks her shoulder against Katharine's gently, and Katharine jumps.  
“Oh, sorry,” Bree says quickly, embarrassed.  
“It's okay,” Katharine says, face warm but she means it. “just used to being treated like a poisoner queen i guess.”  
Bree considers her for a moment or two.  
“You're really not as ruthless as you seem, you know?”  
And therein lies the problem. Kat can see it now, what she's always known but tried to hide. She was never fit for the role of queen, not really. Not when there are girls who smile at her like Bree Westwood, who can see right through her. Right to where she can feel her heart beating like a frightened animal, only she's not frightened. She wonders now what might have happened if she had tried to leave the island, like Arsinoe when she was just a child. If she could have made it, had a life like this on the mainland. She tries to limit fantasies of what could never have been but right now it's all she can do not to kiss Bree right there. Would they be able to have a home together on the mainland? Plant roses in their garden, hold hands in the summer? Would she be happy, finally?  
The queens rage inside her. The idea that they would ever leave Fennbirn disgusting to them. They died for this place, and now they will rule it.  
Katharine looks at her hands.  
“No, I'm not.” 

The black council's meeting is going decidedly Bad, with a capital b. Voices are raised, but Kat just stares into space, head in her hands. They can figure it out themselves, how they want to present her to the public. Most of the votes are going to heartless, dangerous. Someone to be feared. Not Bree. No, she wants Katharine to be a loved queen, someone to bring about a change to Fennbirn. She thinks it's sweet, although she would prefer not to be presented to the public at all. Someone bangs their hand on the table, and Bree storms out of the room. Her chair almost topples but Rho stares at it and somehow it doesn't. Luca gives her a look.  
Katharine stands up quickly.  
“Decide. You know my opinions, you know miss Westwood's. You are the council.”  
“Queen Katharine-”  
“You are the black council, decide,” she leaves no room for discussion. She stalks out of the room, the steel of her boots clacking against the floor of the hallways. Servants see her and leap out of the way, but she knows where she's going. Bree's favourite room in the Volroy. the ballroom with the floor to ceiling windows, where everything is ornately golden and inherently lovely. As Katharine throws the doors open, she can feel the change in the temperature immediately. Heat rolls off Bree in waves, making the air around her shimmer.  
“why are you always here?” she bursts out when she notices katharine. “Always so near to me, like a shadow. Like your sister's shadow.”  
“Bree-”  
“No!”  
“If you could only-”  
“liking you shouldn't feel like a betrayal!”  
katharine falls silent. Bree just looks at her, sort of hurt, sort of like she's mourning.  
“Bree, if you could only find a way to grant me your forgiveness.. i would want for nothing.”  
“You are the queen. I can't imagine you want for anything.”  
it's quiet again, and Katharine starts to worry at her sleeves. The queens inside her won't stand for this talk but for her it feels like the first time anyone has been honest with her since the quickening.  
“Maybe if i didn't want for anything i would be dead, or free.”  
Bree softens a little.  
“I don't want you dead, Kat.”  
Kat laughs bitterly.  
“It's a bit too late for that.”  
“That undead queen rumour? Come on now, Katharine,” Bree scoffs.  
“No,” katharine looks directly at her now. “I will not 'come on'. I need you to hear this.”  
“What are you talking about?”  
“I was pushed into the breccia domain. I wasn't the only one who climbed her way back out. All the dead queens, from years past, they might have been killed but the Goddess kept them nearer to life than one might expect. Clinging to life, to rage.  
The dead queens haunt me, each of them screaming to do this or that. I did not even kill those people, i wouldn't. I can only watch as they destroy, and hope that someday someone might see me for who i am. With kind eyes.” 

“Little Katharine,” Bree says. Her voice is unsteady. Whatever Katharine was expecting, it wasn't this. Bree reaches out, carefully, like Katharine is a horse easily spooked. She rests her hand on her cheek, gently stroking the fragile skin underneath her eye. “where do we go from here?”  
“I don't understand.”  
Bree smiles sadly.  
“Katharine,” Bree is so close to her now, close enough to see the flecks of green in her eyes. So close she can smell the wind on her hair, and she always smells faintly like burning. Kat's heart rattles in her chest. “what do you wish of me?”  
“Only forgiveness.” forgiveness, and love. But Bree can't kiss her. She is the queen, she needs to bear the triplets. And she is poisonous, one kiss for Bree and Bree would be no longer. Instead she lets Bree cup her face. Look at her like she is something special, something worthy. Tears well up, angry and hot. If this were not the way of the island, she might entertain the idea of being loved. Of feeling love.  
“Only forgiveness.”

**Author's Note:**

> hey i hope u liked this !! i dont know if i tagged everything right like i wasnt sure if i should tage it queen katharine or like what but yeah either way i dont think a lot of ppl will read this since 1. its bookfic 2. its 3dc fic and the fandom is teensy weensy and 3. i dont think this ship is wildly popular which i get but like come on theres so many good tropes YALL !!!!!!!!!!!! anyway come yell at me about 3dc on the tumblr im over at @ cysphoria and have many thots about many things like how mirabella is an oracle (gasp! i actually made a whole vid explaining that one lol) so yeah thanks for reading !! peace !!  
> (pst also title is from mitski's pearl diver its so fucking breekat go listen 2 it)


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